Posted on 08/08/2005 2:41:43 AM PDT by bornacatholic
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
"Does the Novus Ordo Mass Fulfill Our Sunday Obligation?" That is the topic of an upcoming debate between Bob Sungenis and Gerry Matatics.
The debate is scheduled for October 1 at a yet-to-be-announced location in Southern California. If the venue has not yet been decided, that can't be said for the divvying up of roles. Sungenis will argue that the Novus Ordo (the vernacular Mass attended by almost all Catholics nowadays) fulfills one's Sunday obligation, and Matatics will say that it does not.
The very prospect of the debate has generated controversy in Traditionalist circles, with many people saying it will be a lose-lose event for their movement. Nothing good can come, they say, from having a prominent Traditionalist argue that the Novus Ordo is so defective that it does not even qualify as a legitimate Mass.
Is Matatics taking the negative in the debate merely as a courtesy? Apparently not.
A few months ago he began a lecture tour focusing on the vernacular Mass and the post-Vatican II revision of the rite of ordination. At his web site he refers to "the strong stand I've taken in my April talks against the New Mass and related issues--e.g., the new (post-1968) ordination rites."
At those talks he is reported to have argued that the Novus Ordo Mass is so defective (he calls it "a monstrosity") that it is invalid and that the 1968 revisions to the rite of ordination render that rite invalid as well.
FOLLOWING THE LOGIC
Lenin famously remarked, "Who says A must say B." If you accept certain premises, certain consequences follow. If Socrates is a man and all men are mortal, then Socrates is mortal. You can't escape that conclusion, even if you wish to.
An invalid rite cannot confer a valid sacrament, no matter how much one might wish it could. If the revised rite of ordination is invalid, then any man who attempts to be ordained a priest under it is not ordained validly. He comes out of the ordination ceremony as he came in: as a layman.
This means that, if the revised ordination rite is invalid, only men ordained prior to its introduction in 1968 are real priests. Only their ordinations "took." All the ordinations conducted since that time have failed to "take."
From what I can gather, this conforms to what Matatics has said in his public remarks. The implications are great.
For one thing, an invalid rite of ordination implies that it would be hard to find a real priest younger than about 60. The priest shortage would be immensely more extensive than it generally is understood to be. If the priest at your parish was ordained after 1968, then in fact you have no priest at all.
If the ordination of a priest under the revised rite is invalid, so too is the ordination (consecration) of a bishop.
A bishop, after all, is a man who has been given the fullness of priestly ordination and who, because of that fullness, has certain powers that a priest does not have. A bishop, for example, can ordain other men. A priest cannot. A bishop enjoys jurisdiction, while a priest does not. And so on.
A HYPOTHETICAL
Consider now a hypothetical example. Let's say that a man was ordained a priest in 1951. He would have been ordained under the old rite, and, according to Matatics, that ordination would have been valid. So far, so good.
Now let's say that the same man was ordained a bishop in 1977. That would have been under the new rite, so, if we follow Matatics's logic, that second ordination would have been invalid. In reality the man still would be a priest; he would not have been elevated to the episcopacy.
Let's take the hypothetical one step further and imagine that this man, who was ordained a priest but not a bishop, is elected pope. What happens?
By definition the pope is the bishop of Rome, not the priest or layman of Rome. No man can be pope unless he is a bishop, just as no man is married unless he has a wife. If our hypothetical man is not made a bishop, either before or just after his election, he cannot be a real pope. There is no such thing as a layman pope or a priest pope. The bishop of Rome must be a bishop.
Now let's bring this hypothetical into the real world.
Joseph Ratzinger was ordained to the priesthood in 1951. He was ordained archbishop of Munich-Freising in 1977. He was elected pope in 2005. If his priestly ordination was valid but his episcopal ordination was not, then he is not a true pope. He is an anti-pope, a pretender, an imposter.
He may be called the pope. He may be addressed as "Holy Father." He may wear papal white. He may live in the Apostolic Palace. He may preside at Vatican events. But, according to this logic, he is not the pope.
This is the inevitable implication of the position that Matatics is now said to promote. If the Catholic Church has not had a valid rite of ordination since 1968, then today it cannot have a true pope. This is sedevacantism.
TALKS FOR TRADITIONALIST GROUPS CANCELED
At his web site (www.gerrymatatics.org), Matatics writes:
"Many of you have inquired about my summer speaking schedule, since, until today, my web site had only listed engagements up through April 16! Here's the scoop: due to the strong stand I've taken in my April talks against the New Mass and related issues--e.g., the new (post-1968) ordination rites (about which I'll be writing in my next essay, which I hope to post here next week)--all but one of my 2005 speaking engagements have been canceled, including:
"1) the Chartres pilgrimage in May I was to have once again (as in the previous 9 years) joined 'The Remnant' for,
"2) the Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute in Lake Gardone, Italy, in June [actually, June 30 through July 10] for which I was to deliver several lectures on the doctrinal controversies in the early Church and the formation of the New Testament canon,
"3) the annual St. Benedict Center Conference in Fitchburg MA in July (at which I've also spoke for nearly ten years now),
"as well as ALL my other summer speaking engagements."
In an e-mail to me, Michael Matt, editor of "The Remnant," confirmed that Matatics withdrew from participation in this year's pilgrimage because he doubted that priests associated with it, including those in the Vatican-sanctioned Fraternity of St. Pter, had been ordained validly.
I did not reach Prof. John Rao, who oversees the Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute conference, because the conference was underway in Italy just this last week.
I telephoned the St. Benedict Center and spoke with a representative who confirmed that Matatics was not invited to speak at the group's conference this year precisely because of talks he had given in March and April, talks in which he denied the validity of the vernacular Mass and the present rite of ordination.
Matatics goes on to say in his online letter:
"Although these cancellations (more about which I will write in my next 'Gerry's Word' essay) entail a devastating loss of income (so donations to help us through these next several weeks will be gratefully appreciated!), I refuse to compromise, or to be intellectually dishonest, on these issues. I will be giving a full defense of my positions on these matters, quoting the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church, in my next essay."
That essay has not yet appeared.
CATHOLICI SEMPER IDEM
This brings me to something mentioned in my E-Letter of last week. Matatics says that "all but one of my 2005 speaking engagements have been canceled." The one that has not seems to be the "Australia-New Zealand speaking tour" that is listed in the "Upcoming Events" section of his web site.
But something else is mentioned there too: "CSI (Catholici Semper Idem) conference in France."
I was not familiar with an organization by that name, so I did a Google search on "Catholici Semper Idem." The search turned up several hits.
Some were to the French site I mentioned in last week's E-Letter. That is the site of "Pope Peter II," an elderly Frenchman who imagines he is the real pope. The site is titled "Catholici Semper Idem" ("Catholics Always the Same") and includes a long essay arguing that John Paul II was not a real pope and another saying that men ordained by the Catholic Church since 1968 remain just laymen.
Is this the group putting on the conference that Matatics will attend? I suspect not. Although his argument about the revised ordination rite leads to the conclusion that Benedict XVI is not a real pope, I find it hard to believe that Matatics would give credence to the claims of "Peter II," even if the latter has published arguments that Matatics finds congenial.
No, I suspect the conference is being sponsored by a different though like-thinking group. This one is called Les Amis du Christ Roi de France (The Friends of Christ King of France) and uses as its subtitle "Catholici Semper Idem," the same phrase used by "Peter II." In fact, arguments on the ACRF site are made use of at the "Peter II" site.
The ACRF site (www.a-c-r-f.com) is more extensive and, seemingly, more serious-minded than the other site, but both rely on the argument that Matatics has taken up: The revised ordination rite is so flawed that today we have no valid ordinations.
ACRF claims that the recent conclave contained no real bishops, since all the voting cardinals were ordained to the episcopacy under the post-1968 ordination rite. All the attendees were either priests or laymen: "Fr. Ratzinger, ordained in the new rite of [Giovanni Battista] Montini [Pope Paul VI, who authorized the 1968 revision], is not a Catholic bishop." If true, this means that Benedict XVI is not a real pope.
The October debate is to be about the Novus Ordo Mass, not about the revised rite of ordination. But the two go together, because if there are no valid priests, it makes no difference whether the Novus Ordo Mass fulfills one's Sunday obligation. A Mass celebrated by a non-priest is a non-Mass.
Decree
The Priest Leonard Feeneyis Declared Excommunicated
Since the priest Leonard Feeney, a resident of Boston (Saint Benedict Center), who for a long time has been suspended a divinis for grave disobedience toward church authority, has not, despite repeated warnings and threats of incurring excommunication ipso facto, come to his senses, the Most Eminent and Reverend Fathers, charged with safeguarding matters of faith and morals, have, in a Plenary Session held on Wednesday 4 February 1953, declared him excommunicated with all the effects of the law.
On Thursday, 12 February 1953, our Most Holy Lord Pius XII, by Divine Providence Pope, approved and confirmed the decree of the Most Eminent Fathers, and ordered that it be made a matter of public law.
Given at Rome, at the headquarters of the Holy Office, 13 February 1953.
Marius Crovini, Notary
Leonard Feeney
BOSTON
The Ravengate Press
MCMLI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
III. More Fog
“When the Jew from the Holy Land went to the Rhineland, he found Christian corruptions there to ease his conscience and soothe his religious nostalgias. This gave the Jew his chance to be a mental Messiah, and to start a procession of prophetic intellectualism that has lasted down to our day. The climax came when an apostate Catholic from Austria ran into Germany with a queer mustache, took over the militia, and out-Jewed the Jews. He became the super-German. And that was the end of Germany.”
* Feeney's The Pilot was infamous for its antisemitism. Feeney was justly excommunicated for his errors and his antisemitism is, unfortunately, a hallmark of the extreme schismatic traditional movement.
right wing extremism and antisemitism. What a shock. Yet Feeeny is to be trusted re explicating doctrine. right
Nothing the extreme schismatic/heretical traditionalists come up with no longer surprises me. Just when I think I have heard it all, someone comes along with a trump card..
Vol. 14, TOLERATION, J. Pohle
But does the proposition that outside the Church there is no salvation involve the doctrine so often attributed to Catholicism, that the Catholic Church, in virtue of the principle, "condemns and must condemn all non-Catholics"? This is by no means the case. The foolish unchristian maxim that those who are outside the Church must for that very reason be eternally lost is no legitimate conclusion from Catholic dogma. The infliction of eternal damnation pertains not to the Church, but to God, Who alone can scrutinize the conscience. The task of the Church is confined exclusively to the formulating of the principle, which expresses a condition of salvation imposed by God Himself, and does not extend to the examination of the persons, who may or may not satisfy this condition. Care for one's own salvation is the personal concern of the individual. And in this matter the Church shows the greatest possible consideration for the good faith and the innocence of the erring person. Not that she refers, as is often stated, the eternal salvation of the heterodox solely and exclusively to "invincible ignorance", and thus makes sanctifying ignorance a convenient gate to heaven for the stupid. She places the efficient cause of the eternal salvation of all men objectively in the merits of the Redeemer, and subjectively in justification through baptism or through good faith enlivened by the perfect love of God, both of which may be found outside the Catholic Church. Whoever indeed has recognized the true Church of Christ, but contrary to his better knowledge refuses to enter it, and whoever becomes perplexed as to the truth of his belief, but fails to investigate his doubts seriously, no longer lives in good faith, but exposes himself to the danger of eternal damnation, since he rashly contravenes an important command of God. Otherwise the gentle breathing of grace is not confined within the walls of the Catholic Church, but reaches the hearts of many who stand afar, working in them the marvel of justification and thus ensuring the eternal salvation of numberless men who either, like upright Jews and pagans, do not know the true Church, or, like so many Protestants educated in gross prejudice, cannot appreciate her true nature. To all such, the Church does not close the gate of Heaven, although she insists that there are essential means of grace which are not within the reach of non-Catholics. In his allocution "Singulari quadam" of 9 December, 1854, which emphasized the dogma of the Church as necessary for salvation, Pius IX uttered the consoling principle: "Sed tamen pro certo...." (But it is likewise certain that those who are ignorant of the true religion, if their ignorance is invincible, are not, in this matter, guilty of any fault in the sight of God). (Denzinger n. 1647)
. . . As early as 1713 Clement XI condemned in his dogmatic Bull "Unigenitus" the proposition of the Jensenist Quesnel: . . . no grace is given outside the Church. . . just as Alexander VIII has already condemned in 1690 the Jansenistic proposition of Arnauld: . . . (Pagans, Jews, heretics, and other people of the sort, receive no influx [of grace] whatsoever from Jesus Christ). . . Catholics who are conversant with the teachings of their Church know how to draw the proper conclusions. . .
Treatise on Baptism
"When we speak of within and without in relation to the Church, it is the position of the heart that we must consider, not that of the body."
"All who are within in heart are saved in the unity of the ark."
Vol. 8, JUSTIFICATION, J. Pohle
"But, not to close the gates of heaven against pagans and those non-Catholics, who without their fault do not know or do not recognize the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, Catholic theologians unanimously hold that the desire to receive these sacraments is implicitly contained in the serious resolve to do all that God has commanded, even if His holy will should not become known in every detail."
(Imprimatur/Nihil obstat 1946)
SALVATION
Outside the Church. "Outside the Church, no salvation." This dogma refers to those who are outside the Church by their own fault. There is a command to enter the Church, which is the prescribed way to Heaven. He who refuses to join the Church which Christ founded, recognizing that Christ comanded adhesion to his Church, is in the way of perdition. But those who are in invincible ignorance will not be condemned merely on account of their ignorance. . .Those non-Catholics who are saved are in life outside the visible body of the Church, but are joined invisibly to the Church by charity and by that implicit desire of joining the Church which is inseparable from the explicit desire to do God's will.
DESIRE, BAPTISM OF, is one of the two possible substitutes for Baptism of water. When it is not possible thus to be baptized, an act of perfect contrition or pure love of God will supply the omission. Such acts are a perfect and ultimate diposition calling for the infusion of sanctifying grace, and at least implicitly include a desire and intention to receive Baptism of water should occasion offer. Infants are not capable of Baptism of desire. An heathen, believing, even though in a confused way, in a God whose will should be done and desiring to do that will whatever it may be, probably has Baptism of desire. It may reasonably be assumed that vast numbers of persons unbaptized by water have thus been rendered capable of enjoying the Beatific Vision.
Fathers Rumble and Carty
722. Does Catholic doctrine allow that the soul of an unbaptized heathen can enter heaven?
Not in the case of unbaptized infants who die before coming to the use of reason and the stage of personal responsibility. The heathens who do come to the age of personal responsibility can attain to the supernatural order of grace and inherit that very heaven for which baptism is normally required on certain conditions. For example, a pagan may never have heard of the Gospel, or having heard of it, may have quite failed to grasp its significance. He remains a heathen, knowing no better, and dies without receiving the actual Sacrament of Baptism. In such a case God will not blame him for that for which he is really not responsible. At the same time, God wills all men to be saved, and will certainly give that heathen sufficient grace for his salvation according to the condition in which he is. If that heathen, under the influence of interior promptings of conscience and the actual inspirations of grace given by God, repents sincerely before death of such moral lapses as he has committed during life, he will secure forgiveness, and save his soul in view of the Baptism he would have been willing to receive had he known it to be necessary, and could he have done so. We Catholics say that such a heathen has been saved by Baptism of Desire. The desire, of course, is implicit only.
St. Robert Bellarmine "De Ecclesia Militante"
". . . (again) there are those who belong to the soul [of the Church] and not the body, as [are] catechumens or the excommunicated, if indeed they have charity [state of grace], which can happen."
Story of a Soul, St. Therese of Lisiuex,
Chapter One
I saw something further; that Our Lord's love shines out just as much through a little soul who yields comepletely to His Grace as it does through the greatest. True love is shown in self-abasement, and if everyone were like the saintly doctors who adorn the Church, it would seem that God had not far enough to stoop when He came to them. But He has, in fact, created the child who knows nothing and can only make feeble cries; and the poor savage with only the natural law to guide him; and it is to hearts such as these that He Stoops.
Humani Generis
August 12, 1950
. . . although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith - Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition - to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See," is sometimes as little known as it it did not exist. What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgement on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources; and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients.
Although these things seem well said, still they are not free from error. It is true that Popes generally leave theologians free in those matters which are disputed in various ways by men of very high authority in this field; but history teaches that many matters that formerly were open to discussion, no longer now admit of discussion.
Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who hears you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgement on a matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.
Careful note should be taken especially of what Pope Pius XII says in Humani Generis on page eleven. We can be sure that Pope Pius XII had this "grave controversy" of the Boston College in mind when he authored this Encyclical as it was written after the Declaration letter of the Holy Office, and before Fr. Feeney was excommunicated. He makes it clear that it is solely the office of the living Teaching authority to interpret, elucidate and explain that which may be only implicitly and obscurely contained within the deposit of faith.
* all thwe aboove are quotes
Apostolicam Sedem
To your inquiry we respond thus: We assert without hesitation (on the authority of the holy Fathers Augustine and Ambrose) that the priest whom you indicated (in your letter) had died without the water of baptism, because he persevered in the faith of Holy Mother the Church and in the confession of the name of Christ, was freed from original sin and attained the joy of the heavenly fatherland. Read (brother) in the eighth book of Augustine’s City of God where among other things it is written, “Baptism is ministered invisibly to one whom not contempt of religion but death excludes.” Read again the book also of the blessed Ambrose concerning the death of Valentinian where he says the same thing. Therefore, to questions concerning the dead, you should hold the opinions of the learned Fathers, and in your church you should join in prayers and you should have sacrifices offered to God for the priest mentioned (Denzinger 388).
Debitum pastoralis officii
You have, to be sure, intimated that a certain Jew, when at the point of death, since he lived only among Jews, immersed himself in water while saying: “I baptize myself in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
We respond that, since there should be a distinction between the one baptizing and the one baptized, as is clearly gathered from the words of the Lord, when He says to the Apostles: “Go baptize all nations in the name etc.” (cf. Matt. 28:19), the Jew mentioned must be baptized again by another, that it may be shown that he who is baptized is one person, and he who baptizes another... If, however, such a one had died immediately, he would have rushed off to his heavenly home without delay because of the faith of the sacrament, although not because of the sacrament of faith (Denzinger 413).
Canon 737
Baptism, the door and foundation of the Sacraments, in fact or at least in desire necessary unto salvation for all, is not validly conferred except through the ablution of true and natural water with the prescribed form of words.
Canon 1239
§1. Those who died without baptism should not be admitted to the ecclesiastical burial.
§2. The catechumens who with no fault of their own die without baptism, should be treated as the baptized.
“On the other hand, however, there are some who never even receive sacramentally, yet who receive the effect of the Sacrament because of their devotion towards the Sacrament, which they may have in desire or in a vow.”
17. Q: Can the absence of Baptism be supplied in any other way?
A: The absence of Baptism can be supplied by martyrdom, which is called Baptism of Blood, or by an act of perfect love of God, or of contrition, along with the desire, at least implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire
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